The Director New Energy at Seplat Energy, Effiong Okon, Seplat Energy Plc, a leading Nigerian independent energy company, at the weekend described gas as the clear solution to Nigeria’s immediate problems, just as it remains a longer-term transition fuel.
Delivering the keynote during the Gas Stakeholders Conversation panel session at the 2024 Nigeria International Energy Summit (NIES) in Abuja, Okon said “increasing the supply of reliable, affordable and sustainable energy is Nigeria’s greatest challenge; but clearly gas is the logical transition fuel we need to realise this.”
He linked gas development to power, Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG) export, Compressed Natural Gas (CNG) production, fertilizer production, Liquefied Petroleum Gas (LPG) production, and building materials production, among others.
For him, “today we have acute housing and infrastructure shortage, but no commercially viable substitute for production of building materials e.g. cement, glass, steel; about 90,000 deaths per year due to biomass cooking; and rising population presents urgent need to improve agricultural production. We can fund all of the above with gas.
“We can also reduce reliance on petrol, increase and decarbonise domestic transport fuel if we leverage on gas. Of course, these would in turn strengthen our focus on sustainability,” he added.
A statement by Seplat quoted the IEA Global Energy Outlook 2022, as showing that natural gas production in Africa is expected to grow by 15 per cent between 2020 and 2030, driven mainly by new projects in Egypt, Nigeria and Mozambique.
Okon stressed that the Nigerian energy industry must focus on end-to-end solutions to unlock the full value of Nigeria’s gas, noting that exploration, production, gas processing and delivery of gas to last mile remain germane to maximising the dividends of the resource.
For a sustainable gas development programme in Nigeria, the Seplat New Energy Director emphasised the need for bankability and access to low-cost capital; use of technology, Internet of Things (IoT) and smart metering to reduce Aggregate Technical Commercial and Collection (ATC&C) losses; and technology-enabled revenue delivery opportunities to aid fund collection.
